


Your Loss

by telm_393



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Introspection, Spoilers for The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 15:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11854851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/pseuds/telm_393
Summary: Now that Matt's actually gone, things haven't changed much.





	Your Loss

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short, quick thing I wrote to add to the many fics that are coming out about this exact topic. It's based on a DD Kink Meme prompt that basically boils down to 'Foggy pretends he's fine with Matt's death, but he's not and he breaks down'. (Prompt is here: http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/9408.html?thread=17878208#cmt17878208)
> 
> Anyway, this is for my wild card square on my hc-bingo. I chose 'estrangement'. It leans very hard towards hurt to the point where it's...mostly just hurt. My argument for it at least mildly counting as comfort is that Foggy's trying to comfort himself by being in denial about his grief.

Foggy knew, by the time he went to Matt's apartment and gathered up all the Daredevil shit, that he wasn't going to get Matt back without Matt putting the suit on one last time. Because here's the truth: Matt didn't really have a choice.

He was caught up in the Hand mess because of bad luck, because that Stick asshole had made him into a weapon in a war that he didn't want to fight, and Foggy knew that Matt thought there was no choice but to fight, and...

Foggy couldn't think of another choice either, so he lugged that stupid costume to the police station and told himself and Karen that if Matt could just get through this last thing, he could finally, finally stop. They could get Matt back, and he could lay all his demons to rest.

(Foggy couldn't take being separated from Matt like he was, not anymore. That's why he reached out.)

But the whole thing was a gamble, because Foggy's hope that Matt could really, finally stop rested on one thing: Matt surviving.

And Foggy knew that maybe he wouldn't. He'd resigned himself to it.

Honestly, there was more resignation than hope, by the time he gave Matt the suit, because Foggy knew that Matt was going to get himself killed at some point.

(That Matt was going to kill himself at some point.)

That was a blessing, he guesses, because it meant that he mostly just felt numb when he realized Matt hadn't come back.

Matt didn't walk through the door, and Foggy thought,  _oh, okay, then,_ because Foggy was prepared. He'd already imagined Matt's death a million times, already grieved.

His knowledge that he was just trying to hold onto a man who had one foot off the mortal coil was half the reason he detached himself from Matt, or tried to.

Just to get used to how life might be without him.

Foggy pretended that Matt wasn't a phone call away, that he wasn't lonely and hurting but right there, that he was dead like Foggy knew he'd be in not too long, and it gave him a taste of life without Matt, his best friend, his brother. Matt was always there for him and Foggy was always there for Matt, and then he wasn't and the pain gnawed at him, at his heart, at his stomach.

Foggy hurt because Matt wasn't with him, but that grief faded, became manageable. He got used to it, and ignored the fact that it wasn't the same as Matt really being gone forever. He figured it was close enough that things wouldn't really change when Matt actually did die, he wouldn't really change. The grief wouldn't really change. Even as he reconnected with Matt, he accepted that he was mostly looking at a ghost. He still tried to keep Matt away from that life, borrow some more time for him, for them, but he always told himself, _he's going to die and you're going to have to deal with it._

And he's dealing with it. He's doing fine.

He did manage to prepare himself after all.

Near the end, Foggy and Matt weren't even that close, so obviously not much is different. He and Matt weren't working together. They weren't hanging out much. They just...weren't what they used to be.

So, yeah, things haven't actually changed much at all, except Matt's dead.

He's dead, but he wasn't really with Foggy before either, so it's not a huge leap, transitioning from Matt being alive to Matt not being alive.

Foggy continues. He moves on. He blinks away tears when he's reminded of Matt. By the time Matt died, Foggy hadn't even been thinking about him that much. Matt would come into his mind, sure, and often.

How's he doing?

Is he okay?

I miss you, Matty.

I want to see you again.

But Foggy still had his own life without him, just like Matt had his own life without Foggy.

And life goes on.

Foggy's does, that is, and just like Matt stopped dominating his thoughts after they drifted apart, he doesn't dominate his thoughts now.

He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't, because there's no reason for him to, not anymore. He was already gone.

(He was a phone call away.)

Foggy doesn't think of him that much. He doesn't, he--

He hears Matt's sleep-breathing sometimes in the dark, measured but occasionally hitching. Foggy used to wake Matt up from nightmares, sit next to him while he rocked back and forth and whispered nonsense that Foggy understands now.

He feels him in his office, rambling about case law.

In his home, tossing an apple from hand to hand and _if you're gonna take it you might as well eat it, Matty._

On the street, hand on Foggy's elbow, and Foggy finds himself automatically saying, _stairs,_ and _curb,_ and _I'm nodding, I'm shaking my head, I'm smiling._

_I'm smiling._

Foggy goes to Matt's apartment to pack up his things, to toss out the food in the fridge and clean the place up, or that's what he tells himself, because when he gets there all he does is sit on the couch and exist and remember.

Laughing with Matt, talking to Matt about anything and everything, drinking with him, being with him, being with him, being with him, and not so long ago Foggy could've come into this apartment and waited for Matt to get home.

Foggy doesn't pack anything up. He just sits on the couch and thinks about tomorrow, another day without Matt in the world. Foggy will go to work. He will see Marci. He will see Karen. Karen will cry and Foggy won't, instead he'll just comfort her, having already found his peace with what happened. He won't acknowledge the fact that he hadn't been as resigned as he thought he was, at the end. He won't acknowledge the fact that he only thought he was ready for Matt to not walk through that door. Won't acknowledge the fact that he was expecting the unexpected, expecting Matt to walk in, to smile in his general direction. Won't acknowledge the fact that when what he thought he was resigned to did, in fact, happen, it broke his entire world to pieces.

The rational part of him said that his last ditch attempt at getting Matt back wouldn't really pan out, that Matt wasn't going to survive this, that he already knew that Matt wouldn't make it to forty. The rational part of him said 'prepare yourself for the worst'.

The rational part of him said 'oh, okay, then' when the worst happened, because it turned out that the rational part of himself thought it was wrong.

Just like Foggy, it expected relief and joy and beautiful, giddy surprise.

Foggy's an optimist. He believes in miracles.

Matt lived through so much. Why not this too?

Except--

Prepare yourself for the worst. He's not going to make it. Accept that he's not going to make it. If he makes it, it'll be a surprise. A good surprise, but a surprise.

What kind of idiot expects a surprise?

All Foggy ended up with was reality.

In reality, Matt is dead, and Foggy's just getting through the days, and he's okay. He has no right to walk around in a cloud of grief anyway. He and Matt weren't even that close anymore.

Except Matt was his best friend. That never changed. It would never change. Even if Matt had outlived Foggy and they'd never spoken again, that would never change, and they were reconnecting anyway. It was awkward and painful, but they were reconnecting.

He keeps ignoring that.

And Foggy may have told Karen, may tell himself, that he brought the suit so that they could get Matt back, maybe, probably not, but the truth is a little more complicated than that, because it wasn't just about them.

It was about him and Matt too.

It was about telling Matt, at what could be the end, that Foggy understood that he had to do what he had to do. That Foggy knew that Daredevil was a part of him. That Foggy didn't hate him for it, and that he forgave him and hoped Matt could forgive him.

That Foggy just really wanted him to live, that's all.

So that they could keep reconnecting. So that they could fix what they'd both broken.

But now it'll be unfixed forever, and tomorrow Foggy will wake up and he will be in a world without Matt, and he will miss him, but it won't be the same. He thought it would be like it was: Matt painfully not there because he's off living his life somewhere else.

But Matt's not off living his life somewhere else.

He's just not here anymore, and so he's everywhere. His memory, the suffocating grief, the regret, the guilt, that's what's left.

Foggy thinks about him all the time, because he's never coming back. It's not even an option.

Foggy sits on Matt's couch and the grief shoves itself down his throat and fills him up and the future stretches out in front of him and at every milestone in Foggy's life there's someone missing, and if Foggy calls Matt's phone his call will go straight to voicemail.

Foggy's sobbing before he notices that he was crying at all. Horrible, wounded sounds tear out of his throat and his chest burns with pain because he can barely breathe, all his oxygen is getting sucked into these heaving, wrenching sobs, and there's no comfort for him because he's fine. He moved on. He's doing better than anyone could ever have expected, because he was ready for this.

Foggy is doubled over in pain, fingers tangled in his hair, sobs that sound more like wails tearing from his throat, mind emptied of everything but the bitter knowledge that he misses his friend. He's lightheaded and his entire body burns, like grief has given him a fever, like it's making him sick, and he can't eat or sleep or think and he wants his friend back he wants his friend back he  _wants him back,_ and--

Matt's memory wraps itself around his shoulders.

Foggy is alone.

**Author's Note:**

> After my olden days in the Daredevil fandom (which is the fandom that has the dubious honor of being why I don't write WIPs anymore, lol), I'm so excited to be in this one now!


End file.
